Intermezzo
by Mrs S Eyre
Summary: Later . . .
1. Chapter 1

_Author's note: I find it almost impossible to write things about what is actually playing out on screen; I can draw inferences and fill in gaps and thought processes sometimes but have never ever been able to do the "what happened after . . . " pieces that some can do so well._

_But the time from "The Human Shield" to the end of "I Do" is ripe with possibilities so I'm giving it a go. Lots of people have written some splendid things already on this subject so this might well seem a bit lame, and if that's the case feel free to tell me so via a review; I promise I won't cry._

_Usual disclaimers apply; none of these characters are mine, except for Chester. Lucky me._

_In two or three parts, it's from Abby's POV._

**Intermezzo – Part One**

You've done that, right? You've had those mad dreams about totally inappropriate people, erotic dreams that seemed so real, but involved people you've never even looked at twice? The last time it happened to me I was getting hot and heavy in the back of a dry cleaning place with Chester from radiology, a guy with seriously bad hair, fingers like sausages and an X Files fixation. For weeks afterwards I'd find any excuse not to go up there, totally sure he'd read it in my face. Man, the stuff my subconscious got up to with that guy, stuff I didn't even know I knew about.

This? This was about a million times worse because it wasn't a dream, it happened, and it didn't just happen once. I can't be sure how many times we did the deed that night, how many times I growled with frustration as he stopped to reach for the pack of condoms on the nightstand. I'm trying real hard not to think of the couple of times we turned to each other in the night only half awake and the reaching for the condoms thing didn't happen because we were too lost in the whole deranged, unexpected, intense, strange familiarity of it.

I do know that it was maybe the best sex of my life, that it was new and exciting but without that thing of not really knowing what worked. We knew and went for it. And went for it and went for it. Whatever else we got wrong when we were together before I couldn't in all honesty fault that side of it, that always worked really well. Maybe if it hadn't we'd have had a reason to talk about stuff. This time I needed to talk, and I had talked and God, he'd listened, he heard me. In the very last split second before he kissed me it went through my head that he was watching me cry and that I was OK with it, more than OK with it. I needed to cry and for once I wanted someone to see me do it. No, I wanted – needed – _him_ to see me do it, because he was the only person in the world I'd trust with it.

It wasn't even about me being mad at him, it was that he'd been able to do that doctor thing, put it all in its place and walk away and man, was I not doing that right then, and it was about that little girl being kept by that piece of shit and her whole world turning into a nightmare, and maybe it was about me remembering some nightmares of my own, like hiding in a closet when I was the same age as her as my mom ran through the house with a butcher knife, or about lying on the back seat of a car thinking I was going to die. Maybe I should talk to him about that whole "God, this is it, I'm going to die" thing because he'd know what I was talking about.

It seemed to take forever for him to walk towards me and I think maybe he was surprised, maybe just getting it straight, understanding what he was seeing. Me crying, not hiding it, waiting for him to make it all right. Jesus, letting him in.

The thing is, I can't even say when we started to get all that other stuff right. I can't say I was surprised when him and Sam ran aground – how was a kid like that ever going to handle a man like him? And yes, that's me asking, me who handled him like I was doing needlepoint in boxing gloves, but that's the point, because I can see that now. But when I felt OK making a little joke about him and me and he felt OK hearing it and smiled that smile I think I knew we'd shifted up a gear.

And really, he didn't do the sackcloth and ashes thing for very long. A couple of drunken pity parties and a half assed attempt to turn his apartment into a biohazard but he seemed like he picked himself up and dusted himself off. Maybe he just knew by then that however bad it felt it wouldn't kill him. Okay, bad analogy in his case, but you know what I mean.

Things moved pretty quick after he kissed me. For a long moment I just looked him in the eyes and then it was me who pulled him back to me, me who was doing the kissing, and we didn't stop to wonder what came next. We knew what came next.

That night , it wasn't the sex that made it what it was, it was that all through it, wrapped up in those sensations, those textures, those scents and tastes and sounds I thought I'd forgotten, there was something else, something that said _I know you_, and God, it was such a relief to be known and still desired, to know and still desire, to be known and still be loved, to know and still to love – see there it is. The "L" word. I'm not talking hearts and flowers and swooning and dreaming, I'm talking love, that solid, warm feeling that comes out of knowing someone for what and who they are. It's the love you have for the friends that stick with you, who see you at your worst and don't run. Except of course I was also swooning and feeling a little bit hearts and flowers too because while I was busy with the knowing and loving stuff I was also busy with the flesh and sweat and kissing for so long that we forgot to breath and just not being able to get enough of it all.

I guess it's complicated. It's weird that it didn't feel complicated while it was happening, it felt easy, and it felt easy because we'd been lovers and now we were friends; but now we'd been and gone and done this and friends don't do this, not like we'd done it, not hot and sweet and – OK, I'm going to say it even if I feel kinda silly, because it's the only word that fits – passionate.

Funny - I didn't realise just how much I'd missed passionate.


	2. Chapter 2

**Intermezzo – Part Two**

When I woke up he was still holding my hand and his fingers were warm and not like sausages and I knew I hadn't been dreaming. Even after a night like that his hair looked better than Chester's, and I was reminded that when he sleeps he looks about ten years younger, and my aching body reminded too that I'd - repeatedly - screwed my good friend and that was likely not a smart thing to do if I wanted to hang onto that friend. Especially as, if he looked at me right, I'd do it again. I mean really, really easily.

But what if he didn't look at me right? What if he could hardly look at me at all; what if common sense kicked in, regret, shame, distance. And before I knew it I'd got the whole script written in my head, with lavish helpings of humiliation and toe curling embarrassment.

Self preservation propelled me out of bed. If I could get out of there before he woke up I could dodge that scene and before I saw him again I could practice my rueful, ironic smile and make some gag about Croatian hospitality, let us both off the hook I was now squirming on alone.

I guess there are less dignified things than crawling around a guy's bedroom floor looking for your underwear, although not many, but while I was doing it the only worse thing I could think of was that guy waking up and seeing me do it, and me making some lame ass excuse for leaving and not crawling right back into bed with him, or seeing that he really did wish he hadn't woken up before I got out of there.

So of course that is exactly what happened. I told him I had to go, had stuff to do (Stuff to do? That was the best I could come up with?), but he wasn't having any of it, grinned at me, told me I should stay, smiled some more, seemed to know exactly where my underwear had gotten to, talked about breakfast. Guess he hadn't read the script. I looked away as he got out of bed, like it wasn't already way too late for that, and told him we'd missed breakfast. And lunch. We'd spent 13 hours in bed, and not a lot of that seemed to have been spent sleeping if I was remembering right, and I knew I was.

I didn't put up much of a fight. And man, those eggs were good.

I don't remember what we talked about as we ate, but we washed dishes like we did it every day and then it came, that sound. For a crazy moment I thought about an earthquake but then the pagers went off and we grabbed our coats and headed out, speculating about bombs and never thinking what had really happened until he turned on the radio in the car and the local station was full of it. That sure solved the problem of what to talk about. He was already running through emergency triage arrangements, already in doctor mode and it rubbed off on me, so by the time we got to County it didn't bother me that Vic saw us coming in together. It bothered me that he wanted to triage in the ambulance bay but there wasn't time to argue about it. Night of the Living Dead. Sure.

Baxter. He cheated death twice he said, and the second time was because Luka knew what he was doing and trusted me to do what he needed me to do and I trusted him to be right and it got sorted out without slicing into the poor guy's throat. And he was juiced, all screw that and no more coulda, woulda, shoulda, carpe diem, and anyway he was pretty sure he was gay. I tried not to think about his fiancée, going from pissed because he missed the appointment with the caterers to frantic with worry to relieved to "WTF, Baxter? Gay?", and putting the teeth he had left back down where we'd pulled the other one from. Luka's smile made him look like he was about 12 and then he looked down at me and the smile turned into a laugh.

"Think we just saved a life or wrecked one?" he asked.

"Both?"

I hoped he was talking about Baxter.

Maybe it was because it was all too crazy for me to have time to pull my usual thinking about it too much for my own good thing, but by the time Neela came in, stinking of smoke, struggling to breathe, wired as all get out, I'd forgotten to feel awkward about Luka and when it did creep into my mind I realised I had a little smile on my face. I'd catch glimpses of him working, watch his hands that just a few hours ago … and then I'd smile some more and get back to work.

Neela though, she'd been taking classes at the Lockhart School of Pigheadedness, star pupil, and no way was she going to stay even if a blind man could see she needed to. In the end I blurted out that I'd slept with Luka, but she kept walking, didn't believe me. But I'd said it, I'd said the words out loud to someone else and buildings didn't fall down, the dead didn't rise from their graves, statues didn't weep blood, the earth didn't slip on its axis. It happened, I said it and – and it was OK.

And then there he was and it didn't feel OK, it felt like a furious blush and I was glad it was dark. And – he had his coat on and was headed out. Home. Alone.

Chit chat, rough night, yeah, glad it's over and then we tripped over ourselves, after you, no, you go, thinking about last night, and then I opened my dumbass mouth to say nearly the stupidest thing I've ever said.

"It was nice." If there had been a wall handy I'd have smacked my head against it. Nice? _Nice?_ 13 hours of nice?

"Nice". He sounded like I'd described a dose of gastroenteritis as nice and, as I'd obviously lost any sense I'd ever had I decided that he didn't think it was even nice and blundered on, "Wasn't it?", and somehow, over the next 45 seconds or so, the "F" word left his mouth and seeing where this was going I played the "so we'll just stay friends" card and he said he didn't know, maybe, if that what was best, if that's what I wanted, and it wasn't what I wanted but I trumped it by agreeing, and that topped the "nice" comment for stupid, and a few seconds later we were walking away as just friends, and I wasn't sure how it happened, only that it felt 20 kinds of wrong, and I thought, wait a minute, wait a minute, this is crazy, friends don't make passionate love for hours and hours and then feel so right about it, they just don't, and I turned around, ready to say "You know, I changed my mind, I think we could do the other thing, maybe give it another chance, and I will if you will", but all I saw was his back as he kept right on walking, and right there was another diem I had failed to carpe.

Coulda woulda shoulda. Right.


	3. Chapter 3

Last part.

**Intermezzo – Part Three**

15 days. 360hours. 21,600 minutes. Give or take. Not that I've been counting. And you know, mostly it's been OK, if you don't count the blushing at the memories that come surging into my head whenever I see him.

I've been thinking that maybe we had a lucky escape. I mean, I tried the sleeping with a friend deal with Carter and look how well that turned out. Even without the magic ingredient of passion, you'd think all the stuff we had in common would mean we'd work out, that we'd understand each other, at least be comfortable together, even if we were never going to set the sheets on fire. Instead we ended up with issues squared . He had enough issues (what did we have before we had issues?) from his childhood and the addiction without dealing with mine and it was the same for me. The worst of it is that we came scarily close to losing the friendship that started it all off, and I came scarily close to losing any friendship I had with Luka too.

Speaking of Luka, I don't have so many friends that I can afford to throw one away just because I happen to think he's hot, passion or no passion. Because I also know from experience that I suck at working friendship and romance together in the same relationship, and it would be crazy to try right?

So why is it that I'm sitting here in his car thinking all over again that he's beautiful and I want him so badly that I'd rather stick pins in my eyes than volunteer to get out? Why is that?

oOo

I know about crazy, I've done crazy, but Neela took gold in crazy today. Michael's a good man, but God, married? See she couldn't answer any of those key questions I asked her, not about the newspaper (I'm guessing Carter is driving Kem crazy with that), or the toilet (and when I think about it that was grounds for divorcing Richard right there). I guess I should give her a pass on the grilled cheese and jam as I think it's probably a Croatian thing; maybe just a Luka thing. I tried it once. I gotta tell you once was enough. Maybe I used the wrong jam. Every objection I raised was right on the money but she wasn't looking for sense, she wasn't looking for my approval, she just wanted me to be a friend and not rain on her parade, just needed my support and who could say no to that? I'd be there for her and be glad to do it, and never mind about toilet seats and newspapers and jam. Maybe I was just jealous that someone could screw all their courage up like this in one mad effort of will to believe that something would work and jump feet first into it, instead of sticking a toe in the water and running back up the beach. Then again, if it took my mind off, well, other stuff, it was all good,

Like I said it's been mostly OK with Luka. Mostly. Until today, today which had gotten started with another kind of crazy, with Luka and Vic being carpeted by Weaver. A couple of guys locking antlers in a testosterone fuelled frenzy might sound kind of hot in theory but it didn't help the frightened hinds and fawns who were waiting on the outcome. I kind of understood Luka's sense of entitlement and Vic was the pain in the ass of all pains in the ass, but yeah, take it outside guys. I know who my money would have been on.

Instead we got a kind of vaudeville act, you know like a Marx Brothers movie where it's all "after you, no, really, after you, no please, I insist" and eventually they try and get through the door together and get wedged in the doorway . . . OK, so they didn't do that last part, but you get the picture.

I was grappling with my drunken crossing lady when Luka came in to say something about an ortho consult just as Glenda cranked it up a notch, and then he was behind me, leaning right in and he was talking in my ear just quiet enough that I had to really listen to hear him over Glenda's monologue, and it was all about Weaver and him and Vic, and getting along and charming and agreeable and his cologne did what scents do and triggered a vivid and very graphic image of me and him, and I know his voice can flirt with a will all of its own, but god damn him he was flirting, out and out full on flirting, and, kill me now, I was flirting back.

What the hell was that? Not fair, that's what that was, and I was grateful to Glenda because struggling with her IV meant he couldn't see my face. When she caught us a lucky but surprisingly effective slap, it was like God was saying "Hey, snap out of it!", I snapped out of it. I may be crazy but I'm not, you know, crazy.

I knew later that Glenda wasn't right and I'd gotten Luka as far as agreeing that better safe than sorry but he hedged when Vic piped up and when he was called away he left without giving me a clear order, which meant that Vic got to tell me to do nothing. They both just about fell over themselves when the brain bleed nearly killed her and I didn't mince words when it came to what I thought of them.

So when it came to little Stuey, what my presentation of my plan lacked in charm it made up for in clarity. Alright, so I was rude, but I'd about had it and anyway I'm premenstrual so I get to kill someone and plead diminished responsibility, right? When I found out later what the poor little guy's story really was I was kind of glad I hadn't been around to deal with it, because by then I was up to my heated rollers in a "What the fuck am I going to wear?" funk and then stealing flowers from the chapel with Haleh, and frankly that was a breeze compared to dealing with little Stuey's crazy mom.

Still, Luka had managed a smile and had the good grace to be both complimentary and self deprecating, not that I was fooled by that, but he said he'd see me at the reception later because he had some mysterious things he had to clear up. Maybe he meant Maureen the infant temp with her mother's cheekbones and her father's chin. She was pretty mysterious, and not in a good way.

Neela was beyond beautiful and Gallant looked handsome and between them they made up for the thrown together tackiness of the occasion, the blue cake and the stolen flowers. I sure hadn't expected when I turned in to work that I'd be standing there with Pratt and Father Superior Markowic watching love's young dream put the rest of us cynics and our _weltschmertz _to shame.

Well, he had some news when he showed up. I had a new boss and he was sitting there perched on a bar stool with a beer, trying not to look too pleased with himself and managing to look, well, hot. I guess we finally knew who had the biggest antlers. I teased him but I felt ridiculously proud of him even if I couldn't quite see him being the hard ass he'd need to be in the job. Still, Chief Kovac had a nice ring to it. The fact is that what I really wanted to do was grab hold of him and kiss him well done, just like I'd wanted to hug the big idiot when he got back from Africa half dead and looking like hell, and I ached a little at the thought that there was no-one there to do that for him, and that if we really were just friends I could have done exactly that, and the fact that I couldn't and didn't told me more than I really wanted to know.

We watched as Morris did what he did best and made a complete ass of himself, and the newlyweds fed each other cake, and we drank to propriety and discretion but drew the line at maturity, and that little ache grew because it just wasn't making sense to me now. I was proud of him and the proprietorial streak that that showed up was a shock. The sadness I felt that there was no-one there who could claim that right was a shock. The little rush of excitement I felt when he stood up and suggested that we get out of there before Morris started telling wedding night jokes or stripping or something came as a shock too.

oOo

"_Her name was Lola, she was a showgirl, with yellow fedders in her hair and a dress cut down to there, and I don't remember …"_

It's another shock to realize that I've never heard him sing before. On a purely musical basis I don't think I've missed much but it's still fascinating, and sort of adorable. But when exactly did he get to where he felt OK doing it? And when did I get to where I felt OK laughing affectionately at him? Or even thinking the word "adorable" in connection with him? The suspicion that me being OK with him as just my friend is just so much bullshit is gaining strength with every minute that passes until it's yammering in my ears and I can't ignore it.

Passion – once that's there there's no way you're ever going to be "just friends" is there? I mean – is there?

He's waiting for me to get out of the car, lean over, give him a peck on the cheek, tell him I'll see him tomorrow and I can't move. I think I'd find it easier to get out if he was doing 60 than it is for me to open this door and get out and get myself into my apartment.

It's bullshit, it is, I'm sitting here and I'm thinking that two weeks ago when I needed someone to cry to he was my first choice, the only choice I would have made, and that has to mean something, and why would it be so crazy, maybe it makes perfect sense, you know, affection plus desire – and this desire for him is so strong that I actually feel a little faint as all the blood in my body seems to have relocated to points south – and I'm thinking about Neela who went with her crazy self and I'm hearing Baxter over and over. "Carpe diem!".

It's bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. What I'm feeling now has nothing to do with friendship and it's real. It's as real as the godawful stab of pain I felt when we heard he'd died, as real as the nightmarish grey numbness of the days after that, as real as the second stab of relief and joy and gratitude that came when we heard he was alive, as real as the connection I felt with him two weeks ago, it's as real as any of those things, and I don't know what to do with it. Help me out here, Luka, I'm about fit to bust with the need to touch you and you're just . . . waiting. And I can't work out whether you're not making eye contact with me because you're embarrassed and wish I'd move my ass so you can get home to bed or because you feel the same as me and if we actually look properly at each other we'll give too much away and be the one to wreck the friendship deal.

OK, this has to be up to me, I mean he can't really invite himself in, but I can ask if he wants a cup of coffee, I can do that, we're friends, friends can do that, and if he just, you know, drinks the coffee, even though he hates my coffee, which I know he does even though he won't say so, well, if he just drinks the coffee and leaves I haven't lost anything.

And then I remember earlier and how he was flirting with me and I think if I ask him in for coffee maybe he won't just leave, maybe what will happen is just exactly what I want to happen, and I also know it's worth taking the risk, and risk is all there is, like Maggie told me. Except what if he says nah, he should get going, it's late, he has an early shift, needs to be on time, lead by example. But what if he really is waiting for me to do something here, what if he - oh, fuck it. For once in your life Abby get a grip and make something happen. No more coulda, woulda, shoulda. Carpe diem, Abby, carpe diem, and here goes nothing.

"Would you like to – "

END.


	4. Chapter 4

_Note: I wasn't going to do this but your pleading was so pathetic and I'm not made of stone when all is said and done. Think of it as an extra Easter egg._

_One reason I wasn't going to do it is that I couldn't write a sex scene if I had a gun to my head (they always turn out cringemakingly euphemistic or half heartedly pornographic) so I haven't really tried._

_Now, about those bribes and inducements …_

**Intermezzo – Part Four**

Later

This is my bed in my room in my apartment and I know every line of every stick of furniture, every shadow cast by every lamp, every fold of fabric. And yet now, this early morning, in the nowhere near light, it seems completely new to me. The furniture seems more stylish, the shadows less threatening, the fabric more sumptuous, the lamplight more mellow, the bed more welcoming that I have ever known it. I think twice before moving, taking time to feel the warmth of the arm around me, feeling the gentle pressure of the hand enclosing my breast like it was something precious, paying attention to the warmth of another's breath on my shoulder, the scent of another's body mixed with mine, the beat of another's heart against my back.

Context is everything they say. These things are not unfamiliar to me and yet they are completely, wonderfully strange, new minted, a revelation. I feel peaceful, completely peaceful. I know that I've slept and that I've woken to something better than a dream.

oOo

Earlier

"Do you really think we should be doing this?" Not the stupidest thing I've ever said but not far off given our movements from the time I became aware that he was trying to get the car door open and we nearly fell out into the street in a tangle of limbs, and he grabbed my hand and just pulled me up the steps to now. I know my hands shook when I tried to unlock the door but that might have been because he was pressed behind me and had his mouth on my throat at the time, and in the end he took the keys from me and opened the door himself. How or where we undressed I don't know although I remember him stopping me from falling when I tripped over my shoes, but a few moments ago I pushed him onto my bed and followed him down and ended the maddening, pointless hiatus in the kissing. I'm aware that he's unclipped my hair and dropped the barrette unceremoniously on the floor and that I'll probably tread painfully on it tomorrow, but I beat down the suggestion of a metaphor in that because what I want to do more than anything else is just kiss him and kiss him and kiss him, and miraculously, it seems that in this our desires converge.

Except that then I ask him that question, and I mean it, even if I can't keep the smile off my face or out of my voice. I mean it even though we're naked, and desperate for each other. I mean it because I'm looking for him to tell me that he's been thinking about this as much as I have and that he puts this up there with the world's best ever ideas. I suppose he could freeze up on me and say "God, Abby, you're right, what the hell are we doing?" but I know he won't, I know it but I need to hear it, so when he shifts his weight to tip me off him and onto my back, following me so he's looking down into my face, and I spread my legs under him because I can't help myself, I can feel myself smiling again, just as he is.

"I do".

And we do.

oOo

Later

He doesn't stir when I cautiously turn in his arms. There is no alteration in the quiet steadiness of his breathing, no flicker of movement on his face and for a spell I'm free just to look at him, taking in this new thing that we are, whatever it turns out to be. I'm wondering if sometimes he still wakes in the night with a cry before he grasps that it was a dream and lies back down, sleepless for the rest of he night. I used to think I knew what those dreams were about but I never asked him. If it happens I will, I'll ask him. Looking at him I remember his pallor, the fading red marks of wounds and sores on his face when he got back from Africa, and the way he smiled at me, and I close my eyes then because that's how close he came to never coming back and I'm shocked by how much it hurts to even think about that.

When I open my eyes again I'm startled to see him awake, gazing steadily at me.

"Hey." His voice is rough with sleep, and already my heart is beating a little too fast.

"Hey".

"You OK?"

"I'm fine."

"Can't sleep?"

"Don't want to sleep".

"No? Something you want to do instead?"

He trails warm fingers down my arm to rest on my hip, and I inch closer, suddenly impossibly shy. Burying my face against him I nod, and whisper "Yes please". He shifts onto his back, pulling me with him and pushes the hair back from my face with his hands before drawing me down into a kiss, and I'm gone.

Through his kiss he whispers into my mouth, "Seize the day". And we do.

END


End file.
